The Golden Key (106 page)

“No respect for her elders,” commented Nicollo. One of his estudos called to him, and he nodded to Arriano and walked away. Part of Arriano’s mind was still in shock. The other part catalogued Nicollo: Gifted, about thirty. Nicollo would be no threat to his plans, not if he thought that Andonio Grijalva was a genius, that Andreo Grijalva, he of the petrified if perfectly detailed
Death
, was a suitable candidate for Lord Limner.

Arriano cast one last glance at the girl and walked slowly down the length of the Galerria. He did not bother to look at the paintings. He either knew them as intimately as he did his own hands, or he had seen them before and did not want to see them again shamefully crowded by the other inmates of this new-made prison.

At the end of the Galerria, in the place of honor, hung
The First Mistress.
At least they had left her space untouched. No other paintings crowded her; she stood alone in all her glory.

Saavedra. It was, truly, a magnificent painting. The memory of the first shock he had received, when he realized that she had moved within the painting, thrilled through him again. In the painting, seen through the arched windows set into the thick walls of the chamber, the light of a spring morning ripened toward the bolder, brighter strokes of midday. The hour candle was cold, its wick curled over, black touched with a hint of grey ash. The lamp no longer burned. And Saavedra no longer stood behind the table.

Amazing. In the two decades since he had last looked upon her she had moved so far within the painting that it was as if his spell no longer held her as tightly. Yet no one had mentioned the change to him. Was it possible the magic blinded them to the truth?

Saavedra now stood almost at the doorway, head in profile. He caught a hint of her face reflected in the mirror that stood on an easel set behind the table. She seemed to be looking
out
, at
him.

“Do you understand yet that I love you more than any other man can? That you love me?” he asked her, murmuring the words. He felt he heard her answer.

I love Alejandro.

“An infatuation! We are the true soul mates, you and I, ‘Vedra. Together we could have done anything, could have saved the Grijalvas from their stupid mistakes, from this parody which they now call art, this
insult
to our name. But I am alone. I am only one man. I cannot do
everything
, control
everyone.
”

You tried. Look what you did to me.
Her answer fairly sparked off the canvas.
Set me free, Sario. It has been long enough. How long has it been
?

Could she actually see him and hear him? Was that truly her voice he heard in his head? How desperately he wanted her at his side. Alejandro was gone, after all, long melted away into dust. Saavedra had only
him
to love now.

“Someday you will love me as you were meant to.”

No answer.

Ah, well. It wasn’t time to set her free yet. He must complete the new transfer, build his new host into a force to be reckoned with, become Lord Limner. Then he would be able to paint her out into the world as his consort, as the one woman who truly appreciated his genius and could even share in it.

That thought stopped him.

“You would be laughing at me now, wouldn’t you?” he asked her softly. “I have found the perfect host, and yet she is imperfect, because she is a girl and thus not Gifted.”

I am Gifted.
But said with anger, and fear.

“And I showed you the truth! You will thank me for it. You will see that I am right! And since you are Gifted, why not another woman? How could it be that such talent is not combined with the precious Gift of the Grijalvas?”

It was a small chance, vanishingly small, he knew that. He had never understood what combination of traits or parentage had given Saavedra her Gift. He barely remembered her mother—but then, he barely remembered his own mother, who had had nothing to do with raising him, or perhaps she had died when he was still an infant. It was hard to keep track. Saavedra’s father he recalled through the blur of time only because
he
had been a curiosity: A plump, womanish man, he had been confirmed as Gifted and yet never painted a successful spelled painting. Late in life he had sired the one child and then expired some years later, most likely of disappointment.

Many Grijalva women, like the men, had some talent for painting, although it was rarely encouraged. He had looked for it, even surreptitiously tested a few talented girls over the years. No other woman had ever shown any sign of being Gifted.

So. He would take the other Sario and watch the girl. Even if she weren’t Gifted, she might make a good, grateful estuda, one who
did
acknowledge his genius, one who had the talent to emulate him. After all, for all these years, his best pupils had always been himself.

He looked up into Saavedra’s eyes, reflected in the mirror. Those beautiful eyes.

All is so changed.
Tremulous now.
Why do I never see Alejandro but only strangers? What have you done to me, Sario
?

“Be well, carrida meya. Wait for me.”

What choice have you given me
?

He placed a kiss on his fingers, held out his bunched fingertips as an offering to her. Then he turned and slowly made his way back down the length of the gallery. He would find out the girl’s name.

It had been good to travel. But it was also good to be home, to have renewed purpose. Saavedra waited for him. Had she not admitted it herself?

Sario—no,
Arriano
—Grijalva felt pleased with himself.

  FIFTY-SEVEN  

Eleyna
balanced her drawing board across her thighs and squinted into the morning sunlight as the Iluminarres Procession wound into the Zocalo Grando fronting the Cathedral Imagos Brilliantos. She tested her hands on the drawing paper with a few swift strokes: the tasseled headbands of the banner bearers; the two banners signifying Mother and Son, pure white linen stitched with gold thread; the torches, burned down to stubs, that had illuminated the nightlong prayers for rain; the white lily adorning the man and woman chosen to represent the vineyard worker and his wife, the Exalted.

She began to sketch in the woman, quickly delineating her sharp nose and with three lines suggesting the curl of her black hair, crowned by a wreath of lilies. Her gaze caught on the man. She clenched her hands. How like the Grand Duke to impinge on a people’s ceremony in this way, by insinuating his second son into the honored place in the procession.
Must they take every honor away from the common folk
?

She left that space blank, where the vineyard worker strode, eyes caught on the banner of the Son. Instead, she furiously sketched in the sanctos and sanctas who accompanied the procession, the white-robed Premio Sancto at their head. They sang, the monumental hymn “Il Pluvia ei Fuega,” while the weight of their ceremonial gold and silver mantles rustled like a stiff breeze across the plaza. Eleyna bit at her lip, trying not to remember the only other time she had seen Don Rohario, the Grand Duke’s second son. But the humiliation was too fresh for her not to remember.

She sketched the outlines of the cathedral hastily and then hatched in shadows. By concentrating on the twin bell towers and their fat shadows stretching over the long arcade of the Palasso Justissia, she managed to thrust the unwelcome memory to the back of her mind. The banner bearers climbed the steps that led to the cathedral forecourt and stopped beside the huge doors. The procession continued on inside, the hymn changing to the more somber cadences of the old vineworkers’ song, “Give Us Mercy, Mother, Your Brillance Burns Us.”

Behind the procession, townspeople flooded into the square,
their hats decorated with gold and silver ribbons or with tasseled headbands in imitation of those worn by the banner bearers. Caught up by their exhuberance, Eleyna turned to a new page in her sketchpad and concentrated on the ribbons fluttering in the breeze, lines that connected one face to the next, drawing the eye through the crowd in all its moods: the teasing laughter of young women; the sincere tears of the devout; the excitement of children seeing their first Iluminarres Procession; the solemn bowed heads of elder folk seeing, perhaps, their last.

It was almost enough to drive away all thoughts of that awful meeting, Don Rohario acting as his elder brother’s representative, her parents scheming and lying to her so she would have no choice but to say “Yes.” Eiha! She never had been able to control her tongue when she was embarrassed and angry, everyone knew that. But after the Don’s ignoble retreat, they had accused her of being ill-tempered and ungrateful.

For a moment she forgot where she was. She no longer saw the crowd or heard their singing and festive shouts. The injustice of it stung. Had she been born a male, she might have been Gifted. Then her skill with pencil, with paints, would have been a cause for celebration instead of an impediment toward liaisons with men.

The crowd continued to swell. Eleyna began sketching again, not really paying attention to the movements of pencil on paper. It was her only release when she got agitated.

“I am meant to paint,” she said under her breath, her words drowned by voices rising now in song. “I will not let them stop me.”

Of their own accord, her hands sketched in the stiff angles of a black hat and, beneath its brim, the scowling face of a middle-aged man. He had the ample jowls of a prosperous guildsman. Her hands drew in the collar with its small pin, golden scales, before she registered the symbol: He was a goldsmith, then, or a jeweler, the two guilds having recently joined forces, following the fashion that had come to Tira Virte from Ghillas together with the new freedom of dress that had become fashionable in the last five years. Grazzo do’Matra! No more confining stays!

A voice rang out: “Let the Corteis meet!”

From that cry, ten others sprang into being.

“Down with the do’Verradas!”

“Let all classes have a say!”

“No taxes without the vote of the Corteis!”

“Let us have the vote!” shouted the guildsman near Eleyna, shoving forward toward the steps of the cathedral. Other men
pushed forward. A shrill ululating scream pierced the air. The hymn from the cathedral was drowned in a chorus of protests.

Perched on the second tier of the great fountain that overlooked the square, Eleyna was not at first caught in the sudden forward surge of the crowd. But she caught their fever, the shift from joyous celebration to angry protest.
I will record it all!
Her pencil flew over the paper, recording a pair of squinting eyes, the blunt set of a mouth, a little girl reaching, frightened, toward her mother.

A pack of young men swarmed up onto the fountain, carrying handpainted signs or banners sewn with three broad stripes: blue, black, and silver. In their excitement they jostled Eleyna. She barely caught her sketchpad, but her drawing board plummeted, falling with a splash into the roiling waters of the fountain. Cursing under her breath, she tucked her sketchpad under her arm, shoved her pencil into the pocket she had sewn into her skirt, and clambered down. But the swelling crowd got in her way. She clung to the stone steps, unable to move.